RWC unfiltered 5-30-11

• Court Slaps VA Over Memorial Day Jesus Ban
• Memorial (Decoration) Day. “Flags In” at Arlington and Robert E. Lee story
• Iran Backs Down From Flotille Against Bahrain
• Robot Finds Mystery 4,500 Year-old Writing In Great Pyramid
• Obama Insist on Tripartate Talks Including Hamas
• Netanyahu versus Obama Behind Scenes
• Romney Send Excess Pizza To Obama Campaigners
• SCOTUS Upholds Arizona E-Verify Law
• Obama Immigration Claims from Southern end of Northbound Horse.
• Barney Frank gets ex-homosexual -lover into Fannie.

In light of the controversy over Israel’s proposed borders (as if the USA had a right to determine such),  I couldn’t resist passing on what a friend reposted:

“President Obama: Please return America to its August 20th, 1959 borders so that Hawaii is no longer a state and you are no longer a citizen.” - Alex Pfeiffer

The Department of Veterans Affairs cannot bar a Houston pastor from invoking Jesus Christ in a Memorial Day prayer, a federal judge ruled in a case that is yet another illustration of anti-Christian animus in Washington DC.  The  judge slapped down VA Bureaucrats saying,” The Constitution does not confide to the government the authority to compel emptiness in a prayer, where a prayer belongs,” he said. “The gray mandarins of the national government are decreeing how citizens honor their veterans. This is not a pick-up-your-trash sign; this is a we-pick-your-word.

The offending  prayer closed with a recitation of the Lord’s Prayer and the line, “While respecting people of every faith today, it is in the name of Jesus Christ, the risen Lord, that I pray. Amen.”

Exactly what the nincompoops at the Veteran’s Administration were thinking  is anybody’s guess.

Just one-out-of-five American Adults have served in the U.S. military, but most of their fellow citizens plan on doing something special on Memorial Day to honor those who gave their lives for their country.

Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation’s wars. There are many stories as to its actual beginnings, with over two dozen cities and towns laying claim to being the birthplace of Memorial Day. There is also evidence that organized women’s groups in the American South were decorating graves before the end of the Civil War: a hymn published in 1867, “Kneel Where Our Loves are Sleeping” by Nella L. Sweet carried the dedication “To The Ladies of the South who are Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead”

Each year for the past 40 years, the 3rd U.S. Infantry (The Old Guard) has honored America’s fallen heroes by placing American flags before the gravestones and niches of service members buried at both Arlington National Cemetery and the U.S. Soldier’s and Airmen’s Home National Cemetery just prior to Memorial Day weekend.

This tradition, known as “flags in,” has been conducted annually since The Old Guard was designated as the Army’s official ceremonial unit in 1948. Every available soldier in the 3rd U.S. Infantry participates, placing small American flags one foot in front and centered before each grave marker. During an approximately three-hour period, the soldiers place flags in front of more than 260,000 gravestones and about 7,300 niches at the cemetery’s columbarium. Another 13,500 flags are placed at the Soldier’s and Airmen’s Cemetery. As part of this yearly memorial activity, Old Guard soldiers remain in the cemetery throughout the weekend, ensuring that a flag remains at each gravestone. American flags are also placed at the graves of each of the four unknown service men interred at the Tomb of the Unknowns, by the Tomb Sentinels. All flags are removed after Memorial Day before each cemetery is opened to the public. Arlington National Cemetery stands on the grounds of Arlington House the homes of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, his wife Mary Custis - a relative Martha Custic was George Washington’s wife - had left him a life interest. In 1861 as the Civil War began Lee left. Arlington was confiscated during the Civil War and fallen troops buried in Lee’s Rose Garden so he could never return. He never did.The first to be buried at Arlington was Pvt. William Henry Christman, 67th Pennsylvania Infantry, May 13, 1864. About 1,500 United States Colored Troops killed in the Civil War are interred.  Nearly 3,800 “citizens” or “contrabands” (former slaves who were living in Freedman’s Village on the Arlington Estate) are interred.  Citizen or civilian is inscribed on their headstones. Over 2,000 unknowns are buried there too.

Four Medal of Honor recipients are interred there.

Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, the wife of President John F. Kennedy, died in 1994, and was buried next to her husband’s eternal flame memorial where he was buried after being assassinated in 1963.

American combat deaths include: 4,435 Americans in the Revolutionary War; 2,200 in the War of 1812; 1,733 in the Mexican-American War; 184,594 in the Civil War; 385 in the Spanish-American War; 53,513 in World War One; 292,131 in World War II; 33,651 in the Korean War; 47,350 in Vietnam; 148 in the Gulf War; 1582 in Afghanistan, and 3,511 in Iraq. There have been dozens of other combats including Somalia, the Indian Wars, Yemen and others. A total for all of America’s war dead is 437,421 killed and 1,343,812 in non-combat deaths and 2,489,335 wounded.

Obama’s botched and confused Middle East policies have sent many there into the welcoming arms of the former Soviet Union — Armenia, Bulgaria, China and Armenia were said to have been quietly sending weapons to the Middle East. Several of the clients were identified as Iran, Iraq, Sudan and Yemen.

It is symptomatic of Obama’s confused, inconsistent, and ineffect ive middle east policy that after more than two months and 1,000 dead inexplicably Obama has refused to call for Syria’s Bashar Assad to resign.

Contrast that with his demand that Egypt’s President Mubarak, within days of the bloody protests in Egypt, leave office.

House Foreign Affairs Committee chairwoman Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen pointed to Obama’s refusal to call for the ouster of Syrian President Bashir Assad despite his crackdown that led to the killing of a reported 1,000 civilians. Ms. Ros-Lehtinen also cited the president’s failure to enforce existing U.S. sanctions on Iran and Syria.

“It is difficult to assess the president’s goals and objectives for the region when considering some of his most significant decisions since taking office, which have included pressuring Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians while at the same time reaching out to the Syrian and Iranian regimes,” Ms. Ros-Lehtinen,” a Florida Republican, said.

Obama has acknowledged that the United States and its allies are pursuing a soft policy toward Syria even as it is moving Iranian supplied ballistic missiles into Neighboring Lebanon and to within striking distance of any target inside Israel.

Officials said that neither Washington nor its NATO allies wanted to confront Assad and stop his crackdown, which resulted in the death of about 1,000 civilians. They said any Western-led operation of the type now waged against Libya would lead to an Iranian-Syrian war against Israel.

“There’s no appetite for that,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said. “There’s no willingness.”

Ms. Clinton’s remarks, in a U.S. television interview on May 19, marked the first time that the administration acknowledged limitations in dealing with the Assad regime. After more than two months of revolt, the administration, including Obama himself, has refused to call for Assad’s ouster.

“We haven’t had any of the kind of pressure that we saw building from our European NATO allies, from the Arab League and others, to do what has been done in Libya,” Ms. Clinton said. “Now, there are many reasons for that, historical reasons, strategic reasons.”

The secretary did not elaborate. But other officials said a key concern by NATO was that Syria would respond to any Western military operation with a missile war against Israel. They said Iran would join and probably direct the regional war.

“This assessment is shared by the Israelis as well,” an official said.

In his speech, Obama devoted only one full paragraph to Syria. In contrast, the president’s call for a Palestinian state took up 14 paragraphs.

On May 19, the White House stressed that Washington would not provide material support for the revolt in Syria. The statement, which cited U.S. sanctions on Assad, envisioned Assad’s continued rule.

“We stand by the Syrian people who have shown their courage in demanding dignity and a transition to democracy,” the White House said. “President Assad now has a choice: he can lead that transition, or get out of the way.”

The administration also asserted that it would not return to lead the NATO mission against the Libyan regime of Col. Moammar Gadhafi. Officials said this policy was established by the president himself when Washington helped organize the no-fly zone over Libya in March.

“We reached the conclusion in Libya that the United States could be part of an international effort,” Mrs. Clinton said. “We were not the ones going to dictate it. We’ve got our hands full.”

In the aftermath of the U.S. assassination of Bin Laden, the Obama administration intended to compensate the divided Sunni world with a gesture meant to demonstrate his leadership if not empathy, analylsts said.

That’s where Israel came in, as Prime Minister Netanyahu, who met Obama last week, came under strong pressure to essentially agree to a Palestinian state in the entire West Bank within a year.

The bottom line, according to a Middle East Newsline Analysis: Obama polities have protected Iran and its friends while undermining U.S. allies in the Middle East.

No good humor as ice cream war erupts in Pennsylvania. Police told the rival vendors to chill out after a dispute Wednesday night. One ice cream truck driver reportedly tried to run another off the road.

The implicated ice cream driver disputes it say ing the other driver tried to run him off the road claiming other had returned his good humored hello by shouting an expletive.

  Iran has backed down from plans to challenge Bahrain in wake of the quelling of the Shi’ite revolt by the Gulf Cooperation Council kingdom.

Officials said Iran ordered two boats headed for Bahrain to turn back before they reached the Sunni Arab state. They said the flotilla was organized by those aligned with the Teheran regime in an attempt to renew the Shi’ite revolt in Bahrain, which contains the headquarters of the U.S. Navy’s Sixth Fleet.

“This would be a blatant interference in Bahrain’s internal affairs,” Fawak Bin Mohammed Al Khalifa, a senior Bahraini spokesman, said.

Officials said Iran ordered the pullback on May 16 amid concern that GCC forces, including Kuwait and Bahrain warships, would intercept the flotilla. They said the two boats, which contained an estimated 120 Shi’ite activists, and weapons were believed to have contained operatives ordered to attack Bahrain.

“The emergence of threats from the ships of the Peninsula Shield [GCC] force and the possibility of attacks [prompted the decision to turn back],” a statement by the Iranian organizers said.

Bahrain’s media quoted a former CIA agent as saying that the flotilla was believed to have contained suicide bombers. The agent, known by his pseudonym, Reza Khalili, said the Iranian-sponsored Ansar Hizbullah recruited members of Basij militia for the operation against Bahrain. Basij has been an arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

“They are also preparing suicide bombers in coordination with the Guards’ Quds Force for attacks on Bahraini and Saudi interests,” Khalili, a former IRGC officer, said. “Ever since the unrest in Bahrain, especially as Saudi forces advanced into that country, the Iranian leaders have been stirring up talk about revenge.”

Officials said Bahrain and the GCC military contingent have been on alert for an Iranian offensive since April 2011. They cited Manama’s success in quelling the Shi’ite revolt, which officials asserted was aided by Teheran.

“Bahrain did not ask for humanitarian aid from the Iranian republic,” Al Khalifa said.

A recent study by the Pew Research Center indicates that 10 years after the September 11 attacks, support for Islamic fundamentalism is growing within the Muslim world and that U.S. efforts to produce an ideological counterproposal to Islamic terrorism have fallen short.

Statistics released May 17 reveal, for example, that 47 percent of Pakistan’s 187 million people “sympathize” with Islamic fundamentalism and 4 percent believe that suicide bombing is sometimes justified. In Egypt, Turkey, and Jordan, the statistics show that 31 percent, 24 percent, and 36 percent respectively also support Islamist radicals who are the main force behind today’s dominant terrorist groups such as Al Qaida, Hamas and Hizbullah.

A robot explorer has revealed ancient markings inside a secret chamber at Egypt’s Great Pyramid of Giza.

The markings, which have lain unseen for 4,500 years, were filmed using a bendy camera small enough to fit through a hole in a stone door at the end of a narrow tunnel.

It is hoped they could shed light on why the tiny chamber and the tunnel — one of several mysterious passages leading from the larger King’s and Queen’s chambers — were originally built.

The markings take the form of hieroglyphic symbols in red paint as well as lines in the stone that may have been made by masons when the chamber was being built.

Egyptologists at Harvard University, similar lines have been found elsewhere in Giza. “Sometimes they identify the work gang (who built the room), sometimes they give a date and sometimes they give guidelines to mark cuttings or directional symbols about the beginning or end of a block,” he said.

Of course some say the writing is a secret message from aliens who really built the pyramid and on and on.

Yesterday was the 100^th running of the Indy 500 mile race. The 1911 Indianapolis 500-Mile Race, or International 500-Mile Sweepstakes Race was held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Tuesday, May 30, 1911. Ray Harroun is best known for the 6 hours, 42 minutes and 8 seconds averaging a bit less than 74 miles per hour. Sunday Indy cars routinely reached 230 miles per hour on the straightaways.

He was the first to drive alone without a “mechanic” whose job was to watch other cars particularly those approaching from behind. That job was eliminated  because of an innovation - a rearview mirror.

The Obama White House is going full steam ahead with preparations for an early summit between Obama, Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to restart the peace process, sources report.  While Obama is satisfied with extracting from Netanyahu three major concessions, Israeli sources call on the US president to shift ground on “land swaps” and security provisions or the peace talks will end amid an Israel-US crisis as soon as they begin.

A high-ranking US official said: “Till now, we have had the curtain-raiser and opening positions: Now we are going for the real show - negotiations.”

He was referring to the Middle East six-speech marathon launched by Obamac May 19, countered by the Israeli prime minster and swinging back and forth up until Thursday, May 26 when Obama reiterated his concept of the Middle East peace track in London.

While many circles have accused the Israeli prime minister of taking a hard line on peace in Washington, Obama is reportedly congratulating himself on what was generally perceived as a debate between the two leaders but which he feels extracted from Israel major concessions:

Those officials stress that the start of negotiations is the best way to stop Abbas turning to the UN in September for recognition of a Palestinian state within 1967 borders.
Sources in Jerusalem confirmed the preparations for the triple summit, but were absolutely sure that the US official was overdoing the optimism in order to squeeze Israel for more concessions.

They said the US president had loaded his Middle East speech of May 19 with pro-Palestinian arguments and laid down two propositions that Israel can on no account accept.

• No Israeli military presence would remain across the new agreed borders between Israel and the Palestinians, i.e. Israel would be denied security provisions;
• As part of the land swap, Israel would have to give up territory - or, in other words, withdraw not just to the 1967 lines but further west and give up chunks of pre-1967 sovereign land.

If Obama sticks to this position, Israeli sources stressed, the negotiations will end very soon after they begin and the distrust between Israel and Washington will only deepen.

After six decades of the closest alliance between Israel and the U. S. Obama has done more to destroy it in favor of the most tenuous promise of anything substantive.

A 63-year-old Long Neck, Del. woman woke up Tuesday morning to find a burglar sleeping on her couch, police say. The woman woke up at 7 a.m. to find her front door screen cut and the door open and a man - who had drunk multiple cans of her beer - snoozing, police say. The man ran but was soon arrested and jailed.

Netanyahu-Obama talked for nearly 2 hours at White House Friday without bridging sharp differences over 1967 lines. At their joint appearance, they affirmed strong US-Israel friendship and agreed to pursue shared peace goal together.

But Netanyahu reaffirmed Israel would not go back to the indefensible pre-1967 lines. Neither would its troops leave the Jordan River frontier.

“We have no margin of error” on security in the peace process, he said.

Israel would not negotiate with a government in which Hamas was a member, Netanyahu said.  He emphasized the Palestinian refugee problem cannot be solved within Israel’s borders. He also noted that 1948 war produced a second refugee problem, the expulsion of an equal number of Jews from Arab lands.

Confidential sources report that In private conversations, Netanyahu has listed West Bank settlements with a total of more than 100,000 inhabitants for potential exclusion outside Israel’s final boundaries.

An Indiana couple discovered a receipt that may have blown 525 miles from Joplin, Mo., to their porch - the longest recorded journey of debris from a tornado.

After spending the day in Chicago fundraising, Mitt Romney sat down with small business owners at Gino’s East, a pizza joint famous for their deep-dish pizza.Not wanting any of the leftover slices to go to waste, Romney sent the remaining pies to where else but President Obama’s Chicago reelection headquarters.Asked if the pies actually made it to Obama’s HQ, a campaign source said that they had.For his part Obama was in Euirope pretending to have a coherent foreign policy.

MSNBC suspended Ed Schultz for a week for calling competing hostess Laura Ingraham a “right-wing slut.” He later apologized to her. BUT, why is NOW mute?

SCOTUS, The Supreme Court of the US,  ruled Thursday to uphold Arizona’s law that penalizes companies that knowingly hire illegal immigrants.In a 5-3 vote, the court concluded that federal immigration law doesn’t prevent the state from revoking the business licenses of companies that violate state law.

The Arizona law also requires employers to use the federal government’s web-based E-Verify system to determine whether potential employees are eligible to work within the United States. The court upheld this provision, saying it is “entirely consistent” with federal law.

The three dissenters on the case were liberal justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonya Sotomayor. Elena Kagan, who was Obama’s solicitor general before being appointed to the court last year, recused herself from the case.

Obama opposes the law.

Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic has been arrested in Serbia after 16 years on the run.Gen Mladic, 69, was found in a village in northern Serbia where he had been living under an assumed name.He faces charges over the massacre of at least 7,500 Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995.

Obama’s Immigration claims are from Southern end of Northbound Horse including:

1. “We are deporting those who are here illegally”

The number of deportations in 2009 and 2010 is higher under the Obama administration than at any other time, but it’s not because of increased enforcement. The higher numbers reflect many removal cases that were already in the pipeline, leftovers from Bush-era enforcement.

Obama should be deporting illegal aliens and not expect a gold star for simply enforcing the law, nor using basic immigration enforcement as a bargaining chip for amnesty. Even at a rate of 400,000 removals per year it would still take the federal government 30 years to remove the 12 million illegal aliens currently living in the U.S is it tried - which it is not.

2. “We’ve increased the removal of criminals by 70 percent”

True, but with a major catch. More criminal aliens - illegal aliens who commit violent felonies - are indeed being deported but it is to the exclusion of almost all other illegal aliens!

Think of two similarly sized pie charts, each representing overall deportations. One is 2009, the other is 2010. The 2010 pie is about the same size but is sliced much differently because DHS deported more criminal aliens in 2010. This is the basis of the deception. The president is taking credit for increasing the percentage of criminal aliens removed, hoping we don’t notice that most other illegal aliens are just being ignored. Thus, the Obama Administration is gradually accomplishing an “administrative amnesty” while simultaneously convincing Americans that enforcement has increased.

3. “The fence is now basically complete”

The fence has basically hit a wall and has for a long time. There are only 32 miles of the recommended double layer fence built and only 649 miles of single layer fence on a border that’s 2,000 miles long. DHS’s own estimates show that less than half of the southern border is under operational control.

4. “We’re going after employers who knowingly exploit people and break the law.”

Worksite raids have been abolished and replaced with paper audits that impose modest fines that employers simply roll into the cost of doing business. Employers are given a slap on the wrist and illegal alien employees are simply released.
During a January 2011 hearing of the House Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Immigration, Rep. Lamar Smith (R- Tex.) reported that, “in the area of worksite enforcement, arrests have fallen 77%; criminal arrests are down 60%, indictments are how 64% and convictions have fallen by 68% since 2008.”

President Obama told Queen Elizabeth that he likes the tea parties in England much better than the ones in the United States. - Leno

Congressman. Barney Frank (D) Massachusetts the most notorious homosexual in Congress  has admitted he helped his homosexual ex-lover land a lucrative post with Fannie Mae in the early 1990s while the Newton Democrat was on a committee that regulated the lending giant - but he called questions of a potential ethical conflict “nonsense.” Frean says everybody uses their position to help “friend.”

Frank wasn’t on the subcommittee that directly dealt with Fannie and Freddie Mac legislation but he once abstained from voting on a Republican amendment to limit executive compensation at the government-backed lenders.

The best tweet was by Ann Coulter saying “Barney Frank gets ex-lover into Fannie.” Franks was accused and admitted to paying a male prostitute and having sex with him.

Callow (KAL-oh) adjective: Inexperienced or immature. ETYMOLOGY:From Old English calu (bald, featherless). Earliest documented use: before 1000.